Tales of a Coexistence
by RainbowNoms
Summary: After a very...um...different...summer day, two twin brothers find themselves hosting Fox McCloud and Wolf O'Donnell...in the same house. How will things pan out? Just how much trouble can two humans and two furries get into? Why am I asking you all these questions? Why? (Latest Chapter: Less Than Holy Deeds)
1. Conservation of Battle Energy

_**Hey, remember Arwing on the Lawn? Doubt it. It got less views in 4 chapters then Shots in the Dark got in 2. And one was a prologue. But I don't care. It's an old relic anyway. **_

_**But this is sort of its resurrection. Instead of trying to tie everything into a single coherent story, I decided to change it into a bunch of humorous shorts. These won't be in any specific chronological order, nor will they necessarily reference one another. I just want to make you guys laugh.**_

_**This first short certainly grew bigger than I imagined, but I hope you like it anyway.**_

_**Oh, yeah, and I don't own any of the Star Fox characters either. (I remembered! :D)**_

* * *

Compared to most people, Josh's and Jacob's lives have been short. They were twin brothers, born just fifteen years ago. They shared many interests, such as Star Fox, GameCube, PC gaming, and the furry fandom. They also had their differences. Josh liked to write his love of Star Fox, while Jacob preferred to draw it. Most of their work revolved around one concept, though. What would happen if human and Lylatian were to meet?

In summer of 2012, the two brothers got to experience their fanfiction/artistry firsthand, and in fact, they still experience it to this day.

It was a crazy enough story how Fox McCloud and Wolf O'Donnell came to be their new pals. Josh and Jacob, as the cliché goes, had been expecting a normal day. Instead, they were rudely awakened by an extremely loud scraping noise around 8:30 in the morning. The twins rushed to their window to see what the matter was, and found a crumpled Arwing sitting where their front lawn used to be.

Even though they thought they were dreaming, rescuing Fox McCloud was an opportunity they just couldn't pass up. Simply put, that's what they did. Josh busted open the cockpit with a sledgehammer while Jacob stood behind; ready to check if the vulpine was still alive.

A certain lupine falling from the sky put a quick halt to their plans. The twins would later joke about how even in unconsciousness, Wolf still had to prevent people from doing things, but when he squished Jacob underneath his six-foot-two, two hundred and ten pound frame, it was no laughing matter.

In any case, the brothers carried the two furries into their living room, barricaded their house against the press, and waited for the two to wake up.

They did, of course, and while the ensuing conversation was hilarious in its own right, that is not the point of this story. This story is about every day after.

A few important things should be mentioned first, though. Among the topics included in said hilarious conversation, there was the fact that Fox's Arwing had been stolen by the United States government, the implications of being stranded on a furless planet, and how Fox stars in a video game series here on Earth.

Plenty of time has passed since that day, but still, Fox and Wolf stay with Jacob, Josh, and their only living parent, their dad. Their friendship, while tenuous at times, still stands strong.

That's not to say there weren't some roadblocks on the way.

So enjoy these shorts and outtakes, and Josh wishes me to give you some advice: Never step on a furry's tail. EVER. You WILL have hell to pay.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, here are their Tales of a Coexistence.

/\\\\\\\\\\

Conservation of Battle Energy

Josh and Jacob Chase stepped off their bus after the tenth day of school. It had been a hard fought battle to reach this Friday, and Fox and Wolf weren't making it any easier.

Tensions had been rising steadily between the vulpine and the lupine ever since the day of their rescue in late June. The twins had been hoping things would calm down between Fox and Wolf by the time school started again, but the opposite was the case.

Things were just getting worse and worse.

However, Jacob had been more than ready to forget that little detail and just enjoy the warm September air. It was a five-minute walk from the bus stop to their house, and Jacob had wanted to smile blissfully the entire time. It only took Josh thirty seconds to take all the fun out of the weather with one sentence, though.

"I wonder how Fox and Wolf will be when we walk in the door," he mused, staring into space.

"Do we really need to talk about this, man? I just want to forget those two for now and enjoy the few warm days we have left."

Jacob had a point. Living in North Dakota did have its cons.

"I just want to know what you think," Josh said quietly.

"If you really want to know, I think they'll be sitting angrily at opposite ends of the house, with a few more scratches than yesterday."

"Come on, do you always have to be so pessimistic?"

"Yes."

"Maybe something different happened today. Something good."

"Doubt it."

Josh sighed and gave up. There was no budging of Jacob when he got this way.

The brothers had been walking downhill for four blocks. At the bottom of the hill, they made a right turn to traverse the final two blocks.

"I'm just saying, Jacob," Josh started up again. "Have a little hope for the two. Sure, we hid their blasters and most of the sharp objects, but they've been here for a month and a half and they haven't killed each other yet."

"Who's to say today's not the day?" Jacob replied curtly. "We have to spend seven hours away from them every fucking weekday now. You can do a lot in seven hours."

Josh stepped slowly away from his brother. Something was off with him today. Sure, he was pessimistic, but this was a new extreme for Jacob.

"Is…is something wrong, man? Did something happen?" Josh asked concernedly.

"No, I'm totally fine!" he practically shouted back, face contorted with rage.

It didn't take much for Josh to put two and two together.

"It's Daphne, isn't it?"

Upon hearing this, Jacob couldn't bring himself to face his twin. On hearing his ex-girlfriend's name, he was suddenly on the verge of breaking down. He roughly kicked a small rock down the sidewalk.

"Look, man. She broke up with you. So what? You can't let the memory dominate your life. All that tells me is that you've let Daphne win. Besides, if she couldn't love you, then she didn't deserve you anyway. Buck up, man, and maybe I'll tell Fox to let you scratch his ears. I know how you love doing that."

Jacob pulled a tear back into his eye, snorted loudly, and looked at his brother with admiration.

"Thanks, man…I…I needed that."

Josh gave Jacob a friendly slap on the back.

"You know what else will take your mind off her? Some video games."

"Oh, yes, please!" Jacob said happily. With all the emotional drama, Jacob had lost his sense of direction. He didn't realize that they were already on the front porch, and that Josh had set his backpack down to dig out the house key. Instead, Jacob just kept walking until his face collided with the front door.

Josh, hearing the thump, looked up and saw his brother clutching his face in pain.

"Dude, you gotta watch where you're going, excited or not," Josh said with a laugh.

"Ow, my nose," was all he had in response.

Josh wound up being the one to enter the house smiling. When he took his first step into the living room, though, his smile sank faster than the _Titanic._

Fox was sitting in the recliner, watching something on the flat-screen TV. And, boy, did he look terrible. Parallel cuts and scratches pockmarked the vulpine's face like acne. Some of them were still open and bleeding, contaminating his red-orange fur with deep red streaks. In addition, his left paw was clutching his upper right arm, and Josh could make out more blood seeping between the fingers.

Fox acknowledged Josh's presence with a quick sideways glance, and then went back to staring at the television while grimacing slightly with pain.

Jacob stepped around his frozen twin, one hand still over his nose. When he saw Fox, he totally forgot his own pain. He was planning to talk to Fox and sympathize with him, but Josh grabbed him by the wrist.

"Follow me, Jacob," he ordered softly through gritted teeth.

Before Jacob could respond, he was roughly dragged into Josh's and Fox's bedroom. (Wolf and Jacob also share a room).

"Josh, what the hell are you doing?!" he asked after being forcibly sat down on the bottom bunk.

"I'll tell you, but first, go find Wolf and see how he looks. I don't care how, just find out," he replied while rummaging around on the other side of the bed.

Sensing Josh's sudden change of temperament, and having nothing better to do, Jacob stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him.

His and Wolf's room's door was cracked slightly. He peeked inside, only to find it empty.

He continued down the hallway, past the living room, and went into the kitchen. It was also empty.

The stairs to the basement were on the other side of the kitchen. Jacob looked down them to find that the light was on.

_Bingo, _he thought as he made his way down. As Jacob reached the bottom, the sound of another television grew louder with each step. Pulling a hairpin turn at the bottom of the stairs, he saw the small basement TV was tuned to the Military Channel. The back of the futon hid the lupine from Jacob's eyes.

_Typical Wolf, always thinking about combat, _he thought with a smile. Jacob took a few steps forward, just enough to see over the futon's top edge. Wolf laid there on his right side, cybernetic eye in full view. The human didn't see much in terms of cuts and scratches; in fact, Wolf's grey fur hid them quite well, even where they did exist. His slightly curled up posture, though, gave away that he was hurting.

Jacob had no idea if Wolf saw him or not, or even cared, but in order to not seem awkward, he greeted the lupine.

"Hey, Wolf," he said flatly.

Wolf didn't budge. He just made a soft grunt-like noise in acknowledgement.

Instead of going back upstairs right away, Jacob made things even less awkward by grabbing a Mountain Dew out of the basement fridge. Then, he made his way back to Josh.

Meanwhile, Josh had been busy digging up the lockbox underneath his bed. The Wolf check was simply an excuse to get Jacob out of the room so he could keep it a secret. Nobody knew about the box except for Josh.

He typed the combination into the keypad, which was simply his birthday followed by the day Fox crashed on Earth. The box beeped twice in acceptance of the code, and the tumblers clicked as they unlocked.

Inside was a small pile of papers. His birth certificate, his passport, and roughly $1000 in cash was stuffed into the box. Josh took $500 and shoved it into his pocket.

You see, Josh had come up with a "solution" to the Fox-Wolf War, but it required a lot of money.

Before he knew it, Jacob's footsteps were echoing back up the hallway. He hastily shoved the lockbox back under the bed, hid it behind its appropriate cardboard box, and crawled up onto his bottom bunk for Jacob's report.

"Wolf's in the basement," Jacob said. "He's not covered in cuts like Fox, but it looked like he was bruised instead."

"Makes sense," Josh remarked. "Wolf likes to use his claws, while Fox prefers the martial arts."

"I still don't understand why you care."

"I care because I have a possible solution. I'm fucking sick of coming home and seeing those two with a bunch of new injuries. So, I'll be back soon."

With that, Josh abruptly left the room and fast-walked towards the front door.

Jacob wouldn't let that stand. He chased after his brother begging for an explanation.

"Where the hell are you going?" he called out.

"I'll be back, don't worry," Josh said calmly as he put his shoes on.

"I don't care if you go alone, but just tell me where you're going, man."

"I'll be back, and calm down for God's sake."

With that, Josh went out the door and was out of sight.

Jacob was left standing next to the TV, utterly bewildered. Fox, of course, couldn't help but witness the entire spectacle. In spite of all the pain still throbbing through his arm and face, he felt he could help.

"What's going on between-ung-you two?" the vulpine asked through a grunt of pain.

"I have no idea, Fox. He was rambling on about some kind of solution to your and Wolf's 'little' disagreements, and then he just took off." Jacob sat down on the couch and glanced out the front window.

"Yup. There he goes on his bike now."

"I doubt anything will stop those fights, Jacob. Wolf's such a self-entitled prick. He thinks he's better than everybody else, even though I've shot him down more times than I can count," Fox said with a growl.

"Really? I've only done it twice in SF-64—"

"-And that's not the whole story. You should know that by now."

"Right. I don't know why, but sometimes I seem to forget I'm talking to the guy who did it all firsthand."

A quick smile crossed Fox's muzzle before he returned to his standard stoic face.

Jacob quit wondering about Josh's solution. Fox's opinion on it was exactly what the human had wanted to hear. Instead of saying anything else, he lied back smugly on the green couch and started to see what Fox was so interested in watching.

As it turns out, Fox McCloud likes _Mythbusters._ It was one of the newer episodes, and they were testing the myth that airplanes flying in a V-formation save fuel. He seemed to be genuinely interested in it, and if not, Fox is one hell of an actor.

Everything about Fox lately seemed to be about piloting or fighting with Wolf. The twins had been puzzling on why this was the case for the better part of the last two weeks. Seeing the airplane myth on TV just brought Jacob's mind back to this point.

Soon, the TV was tuned out once more as he tried to deduce the cause again. Not only was it annoying to always see the furries in some sort of pain, Fox had been continually relating current events to events in his "past life," so to speak, as a mercenary. It had been informative at first (especially for Josh's fanfiction), but it was becoming unbearable.

Jacob had no idea how long he sat there, idly tapping his finger on the side of his head, before a bit of inspiration came to him. The inspiration was in the form of something Wolf had remarked on a couple weeks after their arrival on Earth.

At that point in time, Fox had seemed to be losing that initial disbelief that he was stranded. As a result, he had begun to slip into a depression. Reasoning that nobody could possibly know Fox better than Wolf, the twins had gone to the lupine for some advice.

Apparently, he had been expecting that question. Wolf gave this very well thought out, sensible answer almost immediately:

"_I doubt he's just missing his pals back in Lylat, despite what he tells you. There's something more there. The pup's missing his work. He misses it, even though it's hell, because, you know, war is hell, but peace is boring. And this forced, permanent peace is permanently boring."_

Suddenly, things made much more sense. Fox was constantly talking about mercenary work and overreacting to trivial arguments because he was still bored. The vulpine still wanted that spice of conflict and combat, and those two activities were the only way he could get it.

The solution became clear, then. Relieve Fox's boredom, and relieve the tension.

Hopefully, Josh had figured that out, too, and would come back with something useful.

In the meantime, there was nothing Jacob could do but wait.

It was scarcely 15 minutes later that Josh returned. He stepped into the house carrying a plastic bag. It was strained into a cube shape by the objects inside.

Josh didn't even look at the characters in the living room. He walked quickly and with purpose down the hallway and out of sight.

Jacob, not used to being snubbed like this, followed him in a huff. After traveling down the same hallway, he saw the light coming through a crack in Josh's door.

He peeked in. Josh was bending over an open box on the floor, tossing plastic wrappers behind him, unwrapping cords and plugging them into his TV. He couldn't tell what was in the box, though. He needed a closer look.

"Josh, what the hell is going on?" he asked while forcefully opening the door.

Josh nearly jumped out of his skin. He turned around only to see his twin brother.

_Thank God, _he thought. _I thought it was Fox…_

"Jacob, close the door behind you, for God's sake!" he whispered furiously. Jacob complied, but he was still bewildered.

"Thank you. Were you followed?" Josh asked.

"No…I don't…I don't think so…" Jacob stuttered out, unsure how to answer.

"Good, then I can show you this."

Josh, who had been forming a shield with his body around the box, stepped back with a smile. Scattered on the floor was a brand new Wii, two Wiimotes, Wii Sports, and Super Smash Brothers Brawl.

Jacob couldn't believe his eyes. Altogether, that must have cost over 300 bucks. And Josh had gotten it within a half-hour.

"Josh…what the…"

"Pretty sweet, huh?"

"How the fuck did you get a Wii, two controllers, and two games within twenty minutes!?"

"Don't ask, don't tell," Josh replied with a smile and shrugged shoulders.

"You stole it, didn't you?" Jacob asked. "I can't believe it, my own twin's a thief."

"Don't jump to dumb conclusions, bro. I assure you it was legally acquired. No police officers are gonna storm our house," he replied matter-of-factly.

"But…why? That must have cost 350 bucks!"

"$365.78, and it's my solution."

"How is a new video game a solution?"

"I'd tell you, but I'm trusting no one with this information, so kindly leave, good sir," Josh said, extending one arm towards the door.

"Come on, man, I'm your-"

"I SAID kindly leave, sir."

"Fine, have your weird fun," Jacob relented, and he removed himself from Josh's room.

Josh closed the door and locked it, just to be safe. He finished setting up the Wii and inserted Brawl into the disk drive. Everything loaded up successfully. He wasted no time in starting up Subspace Emissary.

_It's just my luck that the one character I need to unlock takes me through this adventure mode, _he thought as he selected Ike and started the first stage.

Hours passed. Josh kept working his way through Subspace. His fingers were beginning to blister, and his eyes were beginning to tire. Fox pounded on the door many times, but Josh just ignored him. For all he cared, Fox could think he was having a five hour fap marathon.

At about 8:30 that Friday night, in a combination of hunger and finally realizing that Subspace could not be tackled in one day, Josh quit. He packed up the Wii, putting it next to his lockbox, and finally opened up his room once he was convinced the console would not be discovered.

He ambled out towards the kitchen, still seeing Brawl scenes in the back of his eyes. The TV was still on in the living room, but Josh didn't care to see who was watching. He started to rummage through the cabinets once he entered the kitchen.

A certain vulpine, though, must have used his twitchy ears, because Josh found his name being called roughly while he opened a box of mac-n-cheese.

"Josh!"

"Huh? Oh, hey, Fox, what's up?" he said, turning around.

"Why in Lylat did you lock yourself in our room for five hours?!" Fox demanded, his tail swishing around angrily.

Josh thought long and hard on how to reply sensibly without revealing too much information. Frankly, it was difficult, especially when two emerald eyes were boring into him.

"All will be revealed in time, Fox," was what he came up with.

_A little more time than I thought, _he added in his mind.

Fox just rolled his eyes, sighed, and went back to doing whatever he was doing before.

The rest of the night was uneventful. Josh had his dinner in front of the TV with his twin and Fox. Wolf stayed secluded in the basement the whole time, which was pretty typical of him anyway. No more fights happened that night, to say the least.

Fox didn't really talk to Josh the rest of the night. It sort of made him sad that he had to lock the vulpine out again, but he knew that in the end it would pay off.

They dispensed with the usual "goodnights" at around 11:30 pm, and off they went to Dreamland.

The next morning, Josh awoke before Fox at about 8:45. He knew because he could hear Fox's even, regular sleep breathing.

Call him paranoid, but he didn't really want to leave the room, in case the leader of Star Fox tried to get revenge. One part of his brain was utterly convinced that the notion was stupid; the other part was utterly convinced it would happen.

Josh wasn't sure what to do, until he made a convenient observation on the floor. His iPod Touch sat there, headphones coiled nearby like a thin black snake. He decided he would wait out Fox by listening to music and pretending to sleep.

It worked. About an hour later, he heard Fox open and shut the door quietly. Josh let the footsteps recede, and then he jumped out of the bed and locked the door.

Now, you may be wondering, doesn't Josh need breakfast, or a shower, or something?

You underestimate Josh. He had already stashed a box of PopTarts and a can of Amp on his nightstand the previous evening. He wouldn't bother with the shower, because the best defense is to be offensive.

Wasting no time, he set up the Wii once more on his 16" TV. He popped in the Brawl disc, navigated to Subspace, and continued from where he had left off 13 hours before.

_In hindsight, I should have put some padding on my fingers, _Josh remarked as his blisters began to hurt again.

It took scarcely 20 minutes of Josh-style button-mashing for Fox to discover that he had once again been locked out of his own room. The vulpine began to growl and snarl. His ears angled back. His tail poofed up ever so slightly.

"Seriously, Josh?" Fox screamed at the wooden door. "Again with this shit?"

Wolf's voracious laughter echoed down the hallway and into both of their ears. Fox's temper worsened even more.

"What do you want, Fox?" Josh yelled back.

"To get in the room, you dumbass!" he snapped quickly.

"What do you want _from_ the room, Fox?" the human clarified, eyes never leaving the TV screen.

Silence followed as Fox thought about the question before him. It was barely a compromise, but it was better than Friday night's ordeal.

"Uh…" he began, rubbing his neck. "Some clothes for a shower would be nice…"

Josh sighed and paused his game. He opened up Fox's half of the dresser and took the top article of clothing out of every pile. He also grabbed the vulpine's Android phone as sort of a peace offering so he wouldn't be bothered again. One by one, he shoved each object between the door and the floor.

Fox, who had expected the door to open in a civilized manner, was surprised when his clothing started piling up at his feet. He rolled his eyes. Sometimes, the humans absolutely baffled him.

He was about to take his items and go, when his phone landed on top of his Under Armour. It was a nice gesture, sure, but his phone had died, and he had meant to charge it later. Of course, that assumed that he could enter the freaking room!

"Uhhh, Josh? This isn't charged."

Ten seconds later, his wall charger and USB plug popped out under the doorframe.

"Thank you."

Josh returned to his spot in front of the TV.

And that's how the better part of his day was spent. He sat in front of the TV, eating PopTarts, chugging Amp, and mashing buttons. His bladder plagued him several times, but he managed to stay hidden by going in an extra 2-liter bottle. Not glamorous, but super effective.

Fox knocked on the door only once more that Saturday. He requested his laptop around lunchtime. Like a vending machine, it slid out reliably from underneath the door. After that, Josh was left in peace.

He wound up finishing Subspace at around 5:00 pm that night. His journey was not over, though. There was one last step. Return to a specific stage in Subspace, find a secret door, and challenge the character to a one-stock battle.

Thanks to all the practice he had gotten over Friday and Saturday, it was absolutely no trouble.

With his goal completed, and the dopamine surging, Josh fell backwards and passed out almost instantly in an awkward position. Basically, everything above his rear was on the bed, while everything below hung off the end of the bed like a puppet with its strings cut off.

He was jolted out of sleep by more pounding on his door. He blinked several times, trying to adjust from the darkness behind his eyelids to the room's light. Josh slowly rose himself to a sitting position, and he heard the vertebrae in his spine crack and pop as he went.

When Josh hit the sitting position, the TV greeted his eyes. The character select screen was still up on Brawl, and he noticed that he had indeed completed his goal.

Someone pounded on his door again.

"Hold on, hold on," Josh told the incessant noise. He ensured that the unlocked character was saved on the Wii's memory, then he shut it off and hid it next to his lockbox.

Josh walked to the door. On his way, he stole a glance at the alarm clock on a cabinet next to his bed. He was shocked to find that it read 9:30 at night. It was no wonder that the person at the door wanted in so badly.

The human put on his best apologetic face, prepared himself for Fox's angry gaze, and opened the door.

Instead of finding an angry vulpine, he found a tired, freshly bloodied one. He was slouching tiredly, and his laptop was shoved under his left arm.

"Damn...Fox, you look-" Josh began, but he was cut off.

"Stop. I don't want to hear it. Just let me into my bed," Fox practically begged.

Seeing as his work on Brawl was done, Josh had no problem with the request.

"Try not to get your sheets bloody again, I guess..." Josh suggested. When Fox responded with silence, he was shocked. Usually he at least offered up some sarcastic laughter.

The vulpine climbed up into his bunk, and was snoring by the time he laid down.

Seeing as Josh just came off a four and a half hour nap, he turned out the lights for Fox and left the room. His legs maneuvered him to the living room, where he found Jacob and Wolf watching American Dad. Wolf was also visibly bleeding, although he did his best to hide it.

Josh took a seat on the couch next to his twin.

"So, what was today's fight about?" he asked flatly.

"Who the fuck knows?" Jacob responded. "They seem to fight about the most trivial things that it's not even worth it to ask anymore."

Wolf abruptly left the living room.

"I mean, it's like sibling rivalry, except all rival and no sibling."

Josh, noticing Jacob's sour mood on the subject and Wolf's sudden absence, could finally break the news on why he had spent the last two days as a shut-in.

"You remember that Wii I brought home, right?"

"Your supposed solution?"

"Yeah, that one," Josh confirmed excitedly. "Well, I bought Super Smash Brothers Brawl with it, and I've been spending the last 30 or so hours unlocking Wolf. And Fox is a default character."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"...You really can't see it?" Josh asked disbelievingly.

"It's just another video game with Fox and Wolf, so what?"

"Wow. Idiot. Anyway, tomorrow I'm going to reveal it to Fox and Wolf. And it's a solution because they can play as themselves in the game and fight each other digitally instead of actually fighting. And, I'm gonna need your help."

_And he thinks I'm the idiot, _Jacob thought.

"You do realize that will never work, right, Josh?" he asked.

"Why not?"

"These fight's have gotten so trivial that they'll probably argue about who's Player 1 before they even begin."

"That's why I need your help. So we can try and prevent that."

"...You've completely convinced yourself this will work, haven't you?"

"Yup," Josh nodded.

"And nothing I or anyone else says will change your mind, will it?"

"Nope," Josh shook his head. "Besides, do you have a better idea?"

"I guess not..." Jacob said after a few moments. "Fine, I'll help you. If only to get a front row seat to your disappointment."

"I guess that's the letter of my request, if not the spirit. We'll just have to get Fox and Wolf in the living room at the same time."

"Let's work that out tomorrow, ok? Right now I just want to take a shower," Jacob finished, getting up from the couch and heading towards the bathroom. Suddenly, though, the sound of rushing water stopped him in his tracks.

"Welp, looks like Wolf beat you to it," Josh commented.

"Son of a bitch..."

And thus, another day came to a close. Josh wound up awake until one in the morning. He snuck into his and Fox's room to find Fox still snoring. He stole a peek at the vulpine's position. It was actually quite amazing how spread-eagled he was on his back. It definitely explained the snoring.

Instead of trying to fall asleep with a snoring furry, Josh roughly shoved him onto his stomach. Fox didn't even flinch, much less wake up.

The next day, Josh and Fox both woke up at around 11:00 am. The human once again heard the vulpine's feet hit the floor, but this time, he greeted Fox.

"Morning, fuzzy buddy," Josh said cheerfully. He felt more well-rested and excited than most summer days.

"Stop calling me that," he replied while flicking on the light.

"Why? It's funny how you react."

"You make it sound like I'm a kit. I'm a 23-year-old fighter pilot, dude."

"Jacob tells me you've been getting into trivial fights with Wolf like a kit, so…"

"That faggot always starts those battles. I'm just fighting in self-defense," Fox accused, crossing his arms.

"Oh, really? Saying that makes you feel pretty high and mighty, doesn't it?" Josh said condescendingly.

"I can't help it then, because it's the truth," Fox snapped defensively.

"Well, Jacob may be pessimistic and obnoxious, but he doesn't usually lie. So, either you're lying, or Jacob wants to incriminate you." Josh finished his point with raised eyebrows. Fox looked like he had been backed into a corner.

"…I'm not gonna take this today. If you lock this damn door again, I will castrate you while your dad watches," Fox growled, and he left the room.

Josh rolled his eyes, laughed, and got himself dressed.

For the first time in a while, the four of them had a communal lunch. It wasn't anything planned, of course. Everyone was just hungry at the same time. The humans and the Lylatians sat opposite of each other around a circular table.

The tension was immediate and obvious. Both Fox's and Wolf's ears were back just slightly, and their eye(s) moved in short jumps, if they moved at all. Aside from the sound of chewing, it was quiet in the kitchen.

"So…Josh," Jacob began, trying to open up some communication. "When are you going to show them your solution?"

"Soon. I just need a little time," he replied.

"Solution? Solution to what?" Wolf asked.

"Ah, if only I could tell you," Josh teased, smiling. "But I can't yet."

Wolf just shrugged his shoulders, attributing the cryptic answer to something silly and human-related.

No other conversation permeated the kitchen after that.

Fox was the first one to finish lunch. Almost immediately after taking care of his dishes and such, he grabbed a house key off a nearby counter and told everyone he was going for a bike ride. The vulpine couldn't seem to stress it enough that he wanted to be alone.

Josh usually got nervous when the furries went out on their own, but the sight of Fox's Android and earphones was enough to calm him today. Now he only needed Wolf to be his antisocial self.

And that's what happened. When the lupine finished his leftover hamburger, he retreated into the basement again.

"Wow. This is perfect," Josh told his brother.

"So, do you need me to do anything, or…?" Jacob asked.

"Not really. Just go downstairs and do whatever. If Wolf's watching TV, get on the computer, and vice versa. If he comes upstairs, do something to warn me," Josh instructed, using classic lecturer gestures.

"Being instructed to slack off? Awesome!" He went to trot down the stairs when Josh had one last command for him.

"If Fox isn't back in an hour, I'm going to call him. When he does get back, it'll be up to you to get Wolf into the living room. Then, block the TV by standing in front of it. Got it?"

"Sure beans, even though I still think you're doomed to failure."

"Stranger things have happened, Jacob. If it weren't for stranger things, we wouldn't even be hosting furries in our house."

"Whatever," he said, descending the stairs.

"Pessimists, I tell ya," Josh muttered under his breath. He dispensed of his dishes, and went to his room to collect all of his Wii-related things.

After heaving them out into the living room, he went through the motions of hooking up a Wii to a TV. The Wii's main menu music blasted out into the room, and Josh practically sprinted for the remote so he could mute the noise.

_Damn it, Josh, you can't make those mistakes, _he scolded himself. Continuing with the motions, he set up a multiplayer brawl. It would be a 5-stock battle, nothing too complicated. He selected Fox and Wolf as the characters, with no CPUs. He also let Fox be Player 1, trusting Jacob's word that Fox was using the more trivial excuses to start brawls.

After that was done, all that was left was to hide the Wii and the controllers. Then, Josh changed the channel from the Game feed to Channel 51 and started watching TV, awaiting Fox's return.

One hour later, right down to the second, Josh dialed Fox's number. It rang four times before the vulpine picked up. He sounded a bit out of breath, but otherwise normal.

"Yeah?"

"Hey, Fox, feeling better?" Josh asked, trying to break the ice.

"Yeah, much better. I'm glad I did this," he remarked happily. Josh suddenly imagined Fox standing on the side of the bike trail, next to his bike, tail wagging as he talked. It made the human smile.

"Listen, are you on your way back?"

"At Maple Street, heading back, yeah. Why?"

"Well, something's come up, and we need you back here as soon as possible," Josh lied.

"What happened?"

"I don't really have the right to talk about it, I mean, it's really Jacob's problem, but…you remember Daphne, right?"

"That hyper, not-exactly-thin-but-big-breasted girlfriend of his?" Fox replied amazingly frankly.

"Yeah…they broke up, and he's taking it real hard. I'm doing my best, but he keeps saying he'd rather talk to you, so…"

"Oh, alright, I'll see what I can do. I should be around in about twenty minutes."

"That's awesome. Thanks, Fox."

"No problem. What're friends for?"

"See ya when you get back."

"Likewise."

Then they both hung up. Josh immediately got up and went downstairs to share the news with Jacob. He found his twin on the computer playing Alliance of Valiant Arms, their favorite PC game. He also saw his twin take a wicked headshot, and the resulting curse word.

"Hey, Jacob, twenty minutes," Josh announced.

"Huh? Oh, you mean that. Twenty minutes, gotcha," he said, and then he returned to his game.

To finish off his basement trip, he grabbed a Mountain Dew from the basement fridge, walking past Wolf's futon in the process.

To tell you the truth, the next twenty minutes were probably some of the longest minutes Josh had ever experienced. He was so utterly convinced that his plan would be successful, and so utterly ready for everybody's praise, that it was almost impossible for him to wait. Plus, the one thing he wanted to do to kill time was the one thing he needed to hide.

To make matters worse, he was drinking a caffeinated beverage. A _highly _caffeinated beverage. His fingers started to jerk and his feet started to tap.

Luckily, though, it was only twenty minutes later that Fox walked in, looking sweaty but cheerful.

"Hey, where's your sad brother?" he asked after removing his helmet.

"Hold on, I'll go get him," Josh said, keeping up the ruse until the last minute. He walked over to the top of the stairs and yelled down at Jacob. He returned to the living room and made sure the TV remote was safe in his hands before taking his position in front of the TV.

"It'll just be a minute," he assured Fox, who was suddenly looking decidedly more exhausted. The vulpine found the energy to nod first before plopping down on the couch.

Josh re-muted the TV, so all that could be heard was Fox's heavy breathing after what must have been a productive bike ride. And they waited.

Meanwhile, in the basement, Jacob had gotten the message. Convincing Wolf to tag along, though, was going to be the real hurdle. But, he knew he'd better hurry, so he closed out of his game and spoke up.

"Hey, Wolf, come on upstairs with me," he requested nicely.

"Why?" the lupine responded.

_Well played… _Jacob thought.

"Remember that solution we were talking about at lunch?"

"Yeah, but I don't really care."

"Are you sure, because it's time for the big reveal…Come on, you'll love it."

"Nope."

_Damn, he's stubborn. Worse than Josh, maybe…ok, no, probably not, but still…_

In his next argument, Jacob decided to use pathos and appeal to Wolf's sadistic side.

"You like watching people get disappointed, right?"

"…Go on…" Wolf said slowly and gruffly after a moment.

"And you like it even better when it's me or Josh, right?"

"Just make your point, pup," he replied. His grey-furred face popped up over the top of the futon, and the singular lavender eye was glaring at Jacob.

"I'm just saying, it seems that Josh is about to experience the letdown of a lifetime. And wouldn't it be a shame if you missed it."

Wolf squinted and looked upward, pondering the proposition before him. On one hand, he had to leave his favorite piece of furniture, but on the other hand, he needed some entertainment other than the crappy television here on Earth. Besides…letdown of a lifetime…it seemed too good to pass up. Deciding he had nothing to lose, he got up off the futon and sauntered over to Jacob.

"Alright, that's the spirit."

They headed up the stairs.

When Josh heard the two sets of thumps escalating up from the basement, he felt pride in his brother. Although he would never say it out loud, he wasn't really expecting Jacob to follow through with it. And now he and the lupine were walking into the living room before his eyes.

Fox, still thinking Jacob was sad and depressed, spoke up first.

"Hey, Jacob," he said softly. "How you feeling?"

He was confused at first, but his suspicions easily fell on his twin brother Josh.

"What did you tell him?"

"Just get over here and help me block the TV screen," Josh spoke with a fiendish smile.

"Wait, you mean Jacob was never depressed and despondent?" Fox accused.

"I told you a half lie. Daphne did break up with him, but he's not sad about it anymore. I just needed you back here as soon as possible for the big reveal."

"Reveal? Reveal of what?"

"Remember that solution crap they gave us at lunch?" Wolf supplied dryly.

"Ah...so tell me, Wolf. How did Jacob lure you up here?"

"I was promised letdown and disappointment, and I better get it," he said, taking a seat on the recliner.

"...Sadists," Fox scoffed. Wolf just smiled.

"Now that we've got your attention, it's time to begin," Josh started. Jacob stood by his side, not excited, but not angry either. Shoulder to shoulder, they were just wide enough to block the screen. Josh turned the remote around and switched it to the Game channel. The SSBB character select music played, but it's not like the furries had any way of knowing that. Hence the safety in doing it.

"Now, I don't know what yesterday's fight was about," Josh began seriously. "And frankly, I don't fucking care. All I know is that I'm sick of coming home every day to you two wallowing in your own blood and sweat. Now, I also can't speak for my dad on the matter, since he's still on that business trip, but I'm sure he's sick of it too."

Fox and Wolf looked regretful for maybe a couple moments, but then they glanced at each other. Boy, did those expressions disappear faster than the humans thought possible.

"I decided to do something about it, instead of finding one or both of you dead after school. Now, behind me on the television is a game called Super Smash Brothers Brawl. It is a classic violent player versus player video game. Hopefully, you'll settle whatever disputes you have through this computerized violence, as opposed to physical violence."

"And you expect this to work?" Wolf interjected. "You must be out of your fucking mind! Fox'll just fight over who's Player 1 before game even starts!"

Jacob nodded with a proud smile in Wolf's direction. Fox looked like he was about to defend himself, but a combination of Josh's death glare and the knowledge that arguing would only make things worse made him keep his muzzle shut.

"I expect this to work, Wolf, because there is an important detail that I intentionally left out."

Josh let the suspense build for a few moments before revealing the coup de grace. He nodded slowly to Jacob, his cue to step away.

"I expect this to work..." Josh stepped to the side. "...Because you can play as yourselves."

Fox and Wolf's eye(s) widened just a little bit. They leaned back just a little bit in surprise. They glanced at each other, seeing just a little common ground for once.

Josh grabbed the WiiMotes from their secret hiding place, separated them by their player light, and tossed one each to the Lylatians.

"Here are your controllers; have at it."

Their eyes just kept going back and forth between the TV and each other. It wasn't really because they were in a video game; they were kind of used to it. It was more because of their designs that they were in disbelief. The furries just found them to be so..._bad._

"Eww...whose idea was it to dress me like that?" Wolf complained first.

"Yeah, they made it look like you're trying way too hard to be badass," Fox agreed. "...And it just ended in-"

"Yeah, failure, I know. And what's up with your giant eyes and tiny muzzle?"

"I have no idea. It looks like someone reversed the proportion between the two. And they're crazy if they think that I'd ever wear a lens like that."

"What's wrong with lenses over your eye? I've gotta deal with it all the time," Wolf pointed out.

"Yeah, but...I don't know, I just don't like it...Nothing against you, it's just..."

"It's cool, it's cool. Let's just try the game. With any luck, the fighting will be decent, even of the designs are far from it."

Fox pressed the plus button to bring up the stage select. Obviously, they went to Lylat Cruise. After Josh explained the preliminary controls, everything was up to the furries.

To say the least, they got into the game. They really, really got into the game. Josh could feel the tension loosen with every second. Fox and Wolf shouted taunts and jeers back and forth at each other, but they were of good fun instead of rivalry anger.

And as for Jacob...he was proved wrong. He sat back and watched them go through four five-stock games in utter amazement. Josh...he had been right.

It all made sense, though. Jacob remembered deducing that relieving the tension required relieving the boredom, and that's just what games do. They relieved boredom. Adding the Fox-and-Wolf-as-playable-characters was just a needed step to get them to play in the first place. Jacob would admit that it was a stroke of genius.

"I gotta hand it to you, you were right," Jacob whispered to Josh.

"I told you, Jacob," he replied. "I told you. All we need now is two more controllers."

"Yup."

And they sat and spectated the Brawl matches, loving the newfound peace in the Chase household.

* * *

**_There you are. Now, this is generally going to be worked on during downtime while I wait for Shots in the Dark to get beta read, so this may suffer from sporadic updating. And this is probably going to be the longest 'short' on here for a while, too._  
**

**_So bear with me, and I hope I brightened your day just a little._**

**_Bye, now!_**


	2. Of Trees, Lights, and Socks

**_A/N: Wow, 5 favs and 8 follows? I'll be honest, I was not expecting such a response from this. Just...wow. You guys are great._**

**_Anyway, here you go, as promised, the next short in the saga. I was planning to save the Christmas special for a higher chapter number, but the timing just became too perfect._**

**_Enjoy!_**

* * *

Of Trees, Lights, and Socks

"Uh...Josh? Jacob?" Fox yelled throughout the house. "Why is there a tree in the living room...?"

It was Black Friday. Everyone, including Josh and Jacob's dad, was out looking for the best deals out in the commercial world. The two Lylatians still didn't understand why a day of consumer consumption directly followed a day of being thankful for what you already have, but confusion like that was actually quite common. Such is the pitfall of hosting anthropomorphic aliens from a different star system.

Now, they had already had an analogue to Thanksgiving in Lylat, so that holiday was simple enough. It sounded to the twins, though, that explaining Christmas wouldn't be as simple.

Josh and Jacob heard the question at the same time, and they both wound up exiting their rooms at the same time. They made eye contact in the hallway on their way to the living room.

"Oh, this is gonna be fuuuuun..." Jacob muttered excitedly to Josh.

"Heh, yeah," he said, before Jacob's sinister tone caused him to add on a little more.

"Don't you dare give them any bullshit."

"Trust me, Josh. I'm your brother."

_Yeah, that's what concerns me the most, _Josh thought as they stepped into the living room. Fox was standing next to the tree, which sat next to the green couch on the left side of the room. The vulpine was obviously perplexed. He paced around the coniferous tree, examining it, sniffing the branches, and just puzzling like crazy.

Wolf ambled in from the other side of the room. He, too, was confused at the presence of the tree, but he was content enough with watching Fox try to figure out what was going on.

Fox's ears perked in Jacob's direction, and soon his entire head did the same. Jacob smiled at the bewildered expression that was now staring in the humans' direction. The vulpine had been expecting an immediate answer, but when none came, he had to start the conversation himself.

Again.

"Well? What's it doing here?" he asked, poking a thumb at the tree.

"That, my friend, is a Christmas tree," Jacob answered cheerfully.

"What the heck is a Christmas tree?" Fox asked back, sensing an incomplete answer.

"Christmas is a holiday celebrated on the 25th of every December."

"...Really? This vague answer gag again?"

"Just tell him the whole story, man. Christmas is a wonderful thing, not something to make jokes about," Josh told his brother calmly.

"Why do you have to be a killjoy, Josh?" Jacob accused with a disappointed tone.

"We piss them off enough most of the time, Jacob. Just be nice this one time. Besides, isn't that the Christmas spirit anyway?"

"Yes, sensei," he said, bowing jokingly. Josh was a smart little bastard sometimes.

Fox still stood there, waiting expectantly for some kind of explanation. His ear twitched. Wolf kind of sat there in the background like he usually does, arms crossed. He was mildly interested, but only because this holiday required plastic trees to be in one's house.

"Anyway, Christmas is, from a religious standpoint, a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. I think you've tagged along to our youth group enough to know who that is, right?" Jacob started.

The Lylatians nodded slowly in fuzzy remembrance (no pun intended).

"But, there is a legend that many tell. A very well-known legend, and it's one that embodies the spirit of Christmas. It is the legend of Santa Claus."

"Should've known," Josh muttered under his breath. He sat down on the piano bench in preparation for the surely long-winded tale. Not because it was long-winded by nature, more because Jacob tended to be long-winded when telling stories.

"Now, people tell of this Santa Claus all the time during the Christmas season. He is a jolly, old, fat man. He wears a big red suit and a red holiday hat with a little white ball of fluff hanging off the top. His entire ensemble is lined with the white fluff, and he also sports jet-black boots and a long snow-white beard.

"They say he lives at the North Pole, out of sight of anyone who ventures up there. Now, kids around the world write letters to Santa, telling the guy what their Christmas wishes are. You may ask, 'That's well and good, but what can he do about it?' Well, also at the North Pole is an entire workshop, full of short, pointy-eared elves, who are employed by Santa to make the toys that these kids want. These toys get delivered on Christmas Eve."

Josh sighed out of boredom.

Fox was kind of captivated by the cute story so far, even though it got him no closer to the answer of his original question. Jacob just put so much heart into his verbal storytelling, though; the way his hands moved, the way his eyes glazed over as he described the colorful character of Santa...Hell, that kid could make a blank chalkboard seem interesting.

And as for Wolf, well, he didn't know why he was sticking around. The lupine's legs didn't want to move, though, so neither did the rest of him.

"You might ask how he does it. I mean, he has to deliver the right toys to the right houses of every kid in the world. Definitely no small feat, right? Well, he doesn't do it alone.

"Every night on December 24th, Santa packs up his sleigh with a sack full of every toy his elves have built. This sleigh is pulled by eight magical reindeer that can fly. No wings, no jetpacks, no nothing, they just fly using Christmas spirit.

"At each house, Santa lands on the roof, grabs his sack full of toys, and you know what he does? He jumps down the chimney. Yup, the big, old, jolly fat man jumps down the chimney. Then, he sets his carefully wrapped presents under the Christmas tree"-Jacob motioned towards it-"fills the stockings with candies and such, and goes right back up the chimney to move on to the next house.

"There is a catch, though. You only get presents if you're on Santa's nice list. If you're on the naughty list, and you've been bad all year, then Santa fills your stocking with coal."

"At least the naughty kid's family can have a barbecue with his stocking contents," Josh interrupted. Fox smiled quickly.

"-shut up, Josh. Now, in time, we'll decorate the tree with colorful lights, ornaments, and tinsel so Santa can see it in the otherwise dark room. The tree's not just going to stay a plain old tree.

"But I digress. Santa will go house to house like this all night and leave his gifts behind for the girls and boys to awaken to on Christmas morning. And that's the story of Santa Claus."

Fox shrugged his shoulders. At least Jacob had explained the tree's purpose. That aside, Christmas sounded like a neat holiday. Who would pass up free gifts? And all just for not being like Wolf.

The lupine, though, noticed the dreamy way Jacob had told the story. The realist inside him felt the need to point out this little fact:

"...You know that story's a crock of bullshit, right?" he said gruffly.

"Well, duh, Wolf, it's told to little kids as a cheap way to get them to behave," Josh pointed out. "But the story embodies the true meaning of Christmas."

"Yup. Giving to others without expecting anything in return, family, and all around good will towards men," Jacob said.

"Couldn't have said it better myself," Josh complimented.

Jacob walked over to Fox and put him in a sudden headlock.

"Yup. Good will towards men, and this year, furries as well," Jacob said happily, giving Fox a noogie.

Fox didn't like it. No, not one bit. Instead of sneaking into houses and stealing Christmas decorations, though, he used a pretty epic karate move. The next thing anyone knew, Jacob was spread-eagled on the floor, moaning in pain, with Fox standing over him.

Josh started laughing uncontrollably.

"Do that again and there won't be any good will coming your way this year," Fox threatened. Nobody in the room could tell if it was a well-made joke or a serious threat.

"Damn, pup, nice one," Wolf said contendedly. Fox acknowledged the compliment with a nod and a smile.

"Ow….." Jacob continued to moan.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, everyone decorated the house with fever. Josh and Jacob got to teach the Lylatians about hanging ornaments, putting up stockings, and baking Christmas cookies. They seemed to enjoy it, even Wolf, surprisingly enough.

But now, it was Sunday evening, and there was one final step.

Josh, Jacob, Fox and Wolf convened in Josh's room at 7:00 pm, as requested. Josh formally distributed a sheet of notebook paper and a pen to everyone, including himself.

"Alright, here's the best part of Christmas," Josh explained excitedly. "The consumerism."

Fox and Wolf exchanged glances.

"Simply write down what you want to receive as a Christmas present, and when you're done, post it on the fridge using one of the little magnets. You can take as long as you want to decide, but be warned: the later you post it, the less chance you have of getting what you want."

"Alright, fair enough," Fox said. "Maybe I can get one of those little Cessna propeller planes, or—"

"Within reasonable price, Fox," Jacob clarified. "Sure, my dad's decently rich, but he's not gonna buy you a plane."

"Aww, fine." He hung his head in dramatic sadness.

It only took three days for everybody's Christmas lists to be posted. Josh wanted a new iPod Touch, the new Muse CD, and a GameCube with Super Smash Brothers Melee because he was in a nostalgic mood; Jacob put down a new scanner, several more sketchbooks, and a "StarFox Coffee" T-shirt; Fox listed a high-end graphics card for his laptop, a copy of X-Plane (a flight simulator), and some Wii Points; and Wolf selected only some Disturbed CDs and a bass guitar.

At first, Fox didn't really see what the entire buzz about Christmas was for. Sure, there was free stuff, and sure, it was a good excuse to bring forestry into the living room, but why did it turn everyone crazy with anticipation? All this music, all the decorations, all the Christmas specials on TV, it just seemed over the top to the vulpine.

As the days rolled on, though, he started to warm up to the entire thing. Fox would stare at the lighted tree for hours; taking it in, absorbing it, admiring the growing pile of gifts underneath it. It filled him with a feeling that he couldn't quite describe, but he loved it nonetheless.

Josh had been noticing this behavior as well. Many times he would saunter into the living room to find Fox relaxing in the recliner, with a paw on his cheek, staring at the tree. Every time, he would get a warm, approving smile before continuing on his way.

The vulpine also had a hunch that Christmas was growing on Wolf, too. He never made it very obvious that he was enjoying the season, but the lupine always seemed to be watching one Christmas special or another. Wolf also seemed a bit less confrontational too, but that was up for debate.

The first snow of the year came on the 16th of December. It was more of a blizzard, actually, with eleven inches of snow blowing about like crazy. For once, it was enough for a snow day.

Fox noticed the storm starting while going through one of his 'staring at the tree' episodes. An inch or so had already accumulated, and the snow was falling quickly and diagonally across the orange beam of the streetlight. To the vulpine, the scene cemented the awesomeness of Christmas into his mind. It was so peaceful, so silent, and yet so chaotic and picturesque at the same time. The scene reduced his rational brain to tiny weeping fragments.

During the snow day, everyone got outside and enjoyed the fluffy white stuff. And I doubt you'd be surprised if I told you that the two kids and two furries got into a hell of a snowball fight. Josh and Wolf versus Fox and Jacob. The stakes: winners get to dry off with the hair dryer, and the losers get to make everybody's hot chocolate.

Nobody was safe. What started as a fun little activity to kill time turned into a freaking full scale combat operation. Both sides used deception, stealth, planning, the whole nine yards in their attempt to win. It was controlled chaos on the Chase lawn.

The battle was long and well-fought, lasting the better part of two hours. Jacob and Fox probably would have fared better, though, if they hadn't let Josh and Wolf be on the same team. Josh's out-of-the-box thinking, coupled with Wolf's super-powered cybernetic eye, proved to be one hell of a combination. It gave them the upper hand throughout most of the battle, and they finally ended it with a very clever pincer move in the front yard.

But this was simply a minor distraction on the road to Christmas. Josh and Jacob were forced to deal with one hell of a major distraction, though: finals. Winter break didn't start until the afternoon on December 20th, and the meantime was study time.

_Oh, well, more Christmas spirit for me, then, _Fox thought that week.

Finals week passed quickly for the twins, compared to any other week in December. It was amazing what dreading huge, important tests could do to the passage of time.

On the contrary, the remaining four days before Christmas passed slower than a slug carrying a 16-ton weight. Josh and Jacob sprawled their bodies over each piece of upholstery in the house and groaned, expressing their boredom in the most obnoxious ways possible. Even with Brawl and their collection of computer games, they still couldn't overcome the boredom that plagued them.

Fox sympathized with the humans. The hope for the new stuff he asked for clung to his brain like a tumor, preventing him from thinking about anyone else. Soon, the vulpine joined in the show right along with Josh and Jacob (to which Wolf just rolled his eye).

Time always moves forward, though. Such is reality. Therefore, the four pals found themselves congregated in the living room late at night on Christmas Eve. They mainly watched the Adult Swim Christmas specials in silence, but Jacob opened up some idle conversation during one of the commercial breaks.

"So…tomorrow's the day…"

"Yup," the other three muttered.

"Uh…everybody ready…?"

"Yup," they muttered again.

"You guys are no fun."

"Yup," Josh muttered with a smile.

Jacob sighed and went back to focusing on the TV.

Soon, the anticipation got the best of everybody, and they all headed off to their respective rooms for bed. As Fox and Josh settled into the bunk beds (Fox on top, Jacob down below), the human decided to give his fuzzy buddy some fair warning.

You see, the vulpine always slept. A lot. It was not a problem of anatomy, or laziness, or anything like that. As it turns out, a Cornerian day is a little over 30 Earthen hours. Therefore, Cornerians have a circadian rhythm which requires about 12 or 13 hours of sleep a night to function properly. Since nights generally don't last that long in North Dakota, and even when they did, there wasn't enough daytime to make the vulpine and lupine tired again, you'll find their sleep schedules sort of rotate around the day.

For example, the Cornerians will sleep from midnight to noon, stay awake for about 18 to 20 hours straight, then back to sleep for another twelve hours. Then the cycle repeats, and eventually they'll be back to a midnight to noon scenario.

Conveniently, tonight was a night that, under normal conditions, would last from 10:00 pm to 10:00 am.

However, Christmas probably doesn't fall into the category of "normal conditions."

"I hope you're not expecting much sleep tonight, Fox," Josh warned.

"No worries. As long as you stockpiled some Amp, I'll survive," he replied with a smile.

"I did. You do realize how you get when you have more than one at a time, though, don't you?"

"Hey, it's not like I was _trying _to duct-tape Jacob to the wall. It just…sorta…_happened_…hmm…"

"Yeah, and you're lucky your heart didn't give out from all the caffeine and chemicals in your system."

"You are terribly mistaken if you think drinking merely ten cans of Amp in one day is enough to kill me," Fox responded with a confident grin.

"Oh, shut up, Mr. I've-been-through-hell-and-back-and-I'm-fucking-arrogant-about-it McCloud."

"If you want to hear arrogance, go talk to Wolf about Fichina."

"Oh, come now—"

"No. You should _hear _the excuses he gives for being shot down that day. They are freaking _pathetic."_

"I heard that!" an angry, gruff voice called from the next room. If there wasn't a bedframe and mattress between the two, a couple wide-eyed glances would have been traded. They laid there silently, waiting for some enraged footsteps, but they never seemed to come. Josh could feel the adrenaline pumping through his veins as he prepared himself for self-defense.

But alas, Wolf did not leave his room.

"Well, shit, we're gonna hear about this in the morning," Josh said quietly after their paranoia started to subside.

"No kidding…" Fox agreed.

"…Stupid anthro ears…always so much more sensitive than you think…" the human swore.

"The strength isn't that the ears are that much more powerful, we can just move them around, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah…anyway, don't be surprised if everyone's awake at 5:30 in the morning."

"I won't, no worries."

"Goodnight, Fox."

"Night, Josh."

As they imagined, sleep was fleeting, and whenever they managed to grab it, it was fitful. Like every year before it, Josh's brain was filled to the brim with anticipatory thoughts, completely preventing him from sleeping. Instead, he just tossed and turned, trying to listen to music on his iPod Nano.

Fox pretty much wound up in the same boat, except for the fact that he owned an Android instead of an iDevice. But, you know, same difference.

In the next room, Wolf had fallen right asleep, surprisingly enough. In fact, the lupine seemed to be subconsciously cocky about it, at least from Jacob's point of view.

"How could he be subconsciously cocky about anything?" one might ask. "He's asleep, right?"

True, Wolf is asleep. However, Jacob thought he was cocky because the lupine was snoring in the most abhorrent, repulsive, obnoxious way imaginable. So, if there was any hope of sleep for the human, Wolf dashed it right then.

Jacob knew he had to get revenge somehow, but he had no idea how to go about it. Of course, the snoring didn't help the human think clearly, and neither did the impending Christmas celebration. Therefore, the best he could come up with was to wake Wolf up way earlier than he thought Josh and Fox would get up, and hope it pissed him off just a little.

So that's what he did. At about 4:30 in the morning, Jacob put on his happiest face, jumped off the top bunk, and practically shook Wolf awake.

"Come on, Wolf, get up, get up, it's Christmas!" he said like all the Christmas special characters before him.

The lupine gave one final snort. A barely perceptible black dot flew out of Wolf's nose. He then started coughing as if someone had just saved him from drowning.

"Aughh.." he groaned, still coughing. "I think a fly flew in my nose…"

"…Ew," Jacob said, leaning backwards. "Well that explains the snoring…"

Wolf stared upwards while using his left paw to blindly feel around for his cybernetic eye. During this, Jacob got the rare opportunity to get a decent view of the lupine's bad left eye. Instead of lavender, it was a sharp ice blue. Three parallel scars, normally hidden under the cybernetic eye's band, led downward to his iris. In fact, they sort of continue onto the iris. Rather than being circular, there were two little protrusions out of the bottom. It was kind of a neat effect.

Before too long, though, everything was hidden again. Wolf tiredly maneuvered into a sitting position and searched for the alarm clock. When he finally saw the time, he fell backwards onto his bed again.

"Ugh…Christmas can wait another six hours, I think," he moaned groggily, trying to get back under his blankets.

"No, it can't. Come on, nobody sleeps in on Christmas," Jacob begged. "I'll bet Josh and Fox are already waiting."

That was a lie. Every year, Josh would stalwartly wait until 5:30 am to get up, no matter how excited he was. Of course, Jacob had no idea what Fox would do, but if he was anything like Wolf, he'd be sound asleep.

"No. Go back to bed before I chain you to it."

He almost did. Halfway up the little ladder, Jacob had a change of heart. He grabbed Wolf by the forearms and started dragging him towards the living room.

The lupine wasn't making it easy. He didn't speak, he didn't protest, he didn't struggle. He just let all of his muscles go limp. Jacob might as well have been dragging a 210-pound sandbag.

"You can be a real bastard sometimes, you know that?" Jacob grunted out between shallow breaths.

Wolf just smiled as his head lolled with each pull.

Meanwhile, Fox's ears perked backwards as he heard the noises of dragging and swearing. Seeing as he was excited as the next guy about Christmas, he pointed it out to Josh in the hopes that he'd get up as well.

"Sounds like Jacob and Wolf are up already…"

"Yup," Josh simply said.

"…So…don't you want to join them?"

"You can do what you want, Fox, but I always make it a point to resist until 5:30 as an exercise in self-control. That's an hour away."

"Even though there are presents waiting to be opened, and stockings to be unstuffed, you're just going to sit there and do nothing?" Fox asked in disbelief.

But Josh wasn't listening.

The vulpine sighed. For a moment there, he almost did what he wanted. He almost left for the living room, but a couple facts stopped him. First, Josh was going to wait until 5:30 no matter what, it seemed. And Fox was sure the twins' dad was going to wait right along with him. Either way, he would be waiting. Second, he didn't really want to deal with a sleep-deprived Wolf. The regular one was bad enough.

So, he stayed in bed, curled up, and tried to catch a few Z's.

Back in the living room, Jacob had finally finished the chore of dragging Wolf out of the bedroom. Since he refused to even sit up under his own power, Jacob just tossed him haphazardly onto the couch. For all anyone knew, the lupine might as well have been dead.

But Jacob knew he was just being an idiot. He went to the kitchen to look for a drink. When the human opened the fridge, he was pleasantly surprised to find four cans of Amp lined up on the top shelf. A sticky note was attached to the rightmost can. It read, in Josh's familiar handwriting, _In case of Christmas fatigue._

"Hey, Wolf, good news," Jacob said, grabbing two cans. "No need for Christmas to wait anymore."

"You told me Josh and Fox would already be up," Wolf said, still lying limp on the couch.

"Yeah, I lied. I was pissed because you snored like a bear in heat last night."

"I told you, a fly flew into my nose in the middle of the night."

"Well, I didn't know that until after I woke you up. But look, Amp!" Jacob dangled one of the cans by Wolf's face.

First, he saw the eye dart sideways, then it widened, and then Wolf finally moved under his own power. He reached out for it, turned himself into a more comfortable, non-spread-eagled position, and then he opened it up and took a nice, long drink.

"Hallelujah, he's not dead!" Jacob exclaimed sarcastically, opening his own can. The lupine just glared at him silently.

The stockings, each filled with goodies, were hung from the wall opposite the couch. Low light from the living room lamp cast long shadows everywhere as they sat there waiting. Nothing much was said, but both Amp cans were empty within twenty minutes.

Both of them stole glances at their presents frequently. The colorfully wrapped boxes sat there underneath the tree silently, unmoving, mocking the waiting duo with their presence. A single bead of sweat slid down Jacob's face.

After what seemed like an eternity, Josh and Fox bounded down the hallway in excitement. Josh saw his twin and the lupine sitting on the couch, two empty Amp cans at their feet.

"Merry Christmas, guys. I see you found the 'In case of Christmas fatigue' Amp?" he remarked.

"Indeed we did. Great idea, by the way," Josh responded.

"Speaking of which..." Fox started, then trailed off. He slunk towards the kitchen, acting as if no one could see or hear him. When the sound of the fridge door opening echoed through the house, though, it was pretty damn obvious what the vulpine was doing.

"I'd better save my Amp from Fox's wrath..." Josh said after a moment of thought. Both Jacob and Wolf nodded in agreement.

Josh stepped into the kitchen to find Fox chugging one of the remaining two cans. It appeared he was already at least halfway through the energy drink, and the vulpine was holding the refrigerator open with one bare foot. All these observations told the human he was just in time to save his own can.

"Y'know, maybe if you slowed down enough to _taste _each sip, then you wouldn't feel the need to drink so much of it," Josh said while sneaking his hand into the fridge and grabbing the last lonely can.

Fox finished the drink, gave a satisfied sigh, and tossed the can into the sink before replying.

"Oh, please. It's just too good to warrant multiple sips," he argued with a big smile.

Josh rolled his eyes as he went back to the living room. Fox soon followed, and after only five minutes, the twins' dad joined the party.

"Oooooaaaghhh," he yawned, stretching his arms out over his head. "Good morning, everybody, and Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas," the four of them replied simultaneously.

"So, what are we gonna do first? Gifts or breakfast?"

"Gifts!" Fox shouted almost immediately. The Amp was already getting into his system.

Everybody else just sort of stared at him.

"You sure? My homemade cinnamon rolls are to die for," the father tempted.

"Hey, that's true," Jacob agreed.

Fox just looked at everybody like, _Are you really debating this? Really?_

"Alright, alright, Fox, we'll do it your way. Everybody go ahead and get your stockings down."

So they did. Everybody dug through them with haste. They were filled with customary holiday Peeps, Ghiradelli chocolates, and several simple stocking stuffers (try saying that five times fast). The stockings were always a nice appetizer, but you don't go to a restaurant to just eat the breadsticks. You come for the main course.

However, there was one little tradition they had to get out of the way first. After turning the radio to a Christmas station, the twins' father announced the commencement of Christmas Roulette.

Basically, everybody took one object out of their stocking loot and set it aside. Then, the father would take each gift out of the room and put a sticky note on them. This sticky note would have a number between one and four. Without peeking, each participant chooses a number between one and four. Who gets first pick? The winner of the coin toss, of course.

It was a fun little game, and if you were lucky, you could make a nice little trade with someone else. Or you could get your contribution back. Whatever works.

Finally, though, they made it to the entree of present-opening. In the Chase household, each person got all their gifts at once, taking turns opening and watching. Who goes first now? Whoever got the gift labeled '1' goes first, whoever got number '2' goes second, and so on.

As it turns out, 2012's order was Fox, Jacob, Josh, Wolf.

Expectedly, Fox was extremely happy about being able to go first, and he got a pretty good haul. The vulpine got his Nvidia 700 series GPU, a copy of X-Plane 9, twenty bucks worth of Wii Points, and a Steam Wallet gift card. Again, not surprisingly, before Jacob started digging into his gifts, he ran off and grabbed his laptop so he could start installing X-Plane.

Jacob also got everything he wanted. The new scanner and sketchbooks pleased him very much, but he seemed strangely more excited about the StarFox Coffee T-shirt than anything else. He even made a pledge right then and there to wear it the first day back from winter break.

Josh, on the other hand, was left disappointed. To his credit, he did get a fifth generation iPod Touch and the Muse CD "The 2nd Law," but the GameCube was nowhere to be found. In its place was a card for 4000 Aeria Points, which was still ok, but...the lack of Super Smash Brothers Melee made Josh sad.

The best moment of the day, though, had to have been when Wolf was ripping through his presents.

The bass guitar was pretty obvious; not only was it the largest box around, but it was also the most elaborately decorated. The lupine was very happy with it, though. It was a high-end Ibanez Gio Soundgear, one of the best starter basses out there. Fox's gift to Wolf, though, was definitely the most surprising.

At first glance, it was just an oblong grey box. Upon closer inspection, though, five CDs were placed inside of it like books in a bookshelf. They weren't just any CDs, though. They were all five Disturbed CDs that have been released. And the oblong grey box wasn't just an oblong grey box. It was the box for the Disturbed Studio Album Collection.

Wolf was left speechless. He had only asked for two of the five albums, and now all five were lined up, ready to be played in chronological order. The craziest part was, though, that it was all were one gift.

From Fox.

The lupine wasn't sure how long he sat there, jaw hanging open, disbelieving his eyes, before he finally decided to get some verbal confirmation.

"So this is all...from you?"

"Yeah," Fox replied.

"...And this is all of Disturbed's albums?"

"Yeah."

"Wow..."

He couldn't believe how close he felt to the vulpine right then. It was something he hadn't felt for ten years; something he hadn't felt before the fight that finally separated the two for the longest time. It was something that sadly took a forced living arrangement on a primitive planet to finally be resurrected.

And it felt...good.

"I never thought I'd hear myself say this again, but...thanks, pup. Thanks a lot."

Fox put on a warm grin and opened out his arms out for a hug.

"Okay, don't push your luck, Fox," Wolf said, suddenly looking stern.

"Aw, come on, Wolf, it's Christmas. Have some spirit," Josh said. He really wanted to witness an event that could possibly render over half of the Star Fox canon invalid if they ever got back to Lylat.

"No. I'm not going to hug him," he asserted. But everyone's hopeful stares and Fox's open arms began to pound away at that stonewall like so many wrecking balls. It became incredibly unbearable after an incredibly short period of time, and eventually, the lupine gave in. He leaned forward and accepted the embrace, if still a bit begrudgingly.

The twins and their dad literally broke out into applause and cheers once the moment was made. But all of it was drowned out by three little words that Fox uttered during the hug:

"Merry Christmas, Wolf."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah..." Wolf replied, not wanting to feel any more embarrassed than he already was.

"Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good NIGHT!" Josh yelled happily, getting a couple of laughs and more applause out of it.

...

And I hope the same to you, too.

...

Merry Christmas.

* * *

_**A/N: Welp, how was it? Got any fun Christmas stories you'd like to share? Feel free to answer any of these questions with a review.**_

_**Ok, maybe that's kind of a cheap way to ask for reviews, but who cares? It's Christmas.**_

_**And if you're not a celebrator of Christmas, then Happy Holidays, for what it's worth.**_

_**Peace, ya'll**_

_**-Brandon**_


	3. Less Than Holy Deeds

_**A/N: Surprise! Bet you weren't expecting this to be updated! I did say fair and square, though, that this would suffer from sporadic updating.**_

_**Anyway, before you read this, let me give you fair warning. It's not as clean as anything I've written previously. I don't think it warrants an M-rating, plus I don't want to change the main rating for the sake of one chapter, but just...reader discretion is advised.**_

_**Enjoy!**_

* * *

Less Than Holy Deeds

Jacob probably wouldn't have even recognized the sound if he hadn't been all too familiar with it.

His knowledge of this particular sound certainly wasn't something he flaunted around like a prize-winning pig, but if asked, he wasn't afraid to admit it. Fox, on the other hand...

You might know this sound, too. Jacob would describe it as a "muted paddleball."

It's not a very loud sound, either. But at eight in the morning, when no one else is supposed to be awake, and when Wolf hasn't awoken to switch on the living room television yet, one could hear it all the way up the stairs and into the kitchen.

And that's how Jacob heard it that Thursday morning. It was still the summertime, still during summer vacation. The school break was certainly dwindling, though. Being that it was mid-August, the human twins had a little over a week to go until school started again.

But I digress. Back to the sound.

Jacob heard it as he was switching on the coffeemaker for his brother Josh and furries Fox McCloud and Wolf O'Donnell. As mentioned before, it was a muffled paddleball sort of sound; quiet yet strangely rhythmic. And, as mentioned before, he thought he recognized it. Whether it was the average morning brain-dead quality that a teenager has that compelled him to look down the stairs, or just the need to confirm a grim realization, nobody would ever know.

The simple fact is that he made the bad decision to look.

At the angle that the stairwell was at, he wasn't able to see the computer screen. He was able to see Fox, though; at least, enough of him to get the picture.

The vulpine was still in his nightclothes; a white T-shirt with red around the edges, and some green flannel shorts. None of that mattered, though. There were really only two details that gave it all away.

First, his white-tipped tail twitched right along with the sound whilst hanging over the edge of the computer chair. And second, his right elbow and arm moved just perceptibly right along with the rhythm. It was almost like a dance; a sickening, disgusting dance to a beat Fox himself was creating.

Any sane person's reaction would probably be to walk away and pretend like nothing ever happened. And while it's doubtful that the Chase twins could be considered entirely sane, it's still what Jacob should have done as well. Yet, he didn't. He continued to look on, hiding himself as best he could in case Fox turned around.

It could have been disbelief. It could have been shock. It could have been pure curiosity. It could have been any combination of the three. But whatever the reason, Jacob looked on at Fox's back, knowing all too well what was happening at the front.

He was still crouched by the stairwell when Wolf walked into the kitchen five minutes later. Dressed only in some blue shorts and his trademark cybernetic eye, he initially didn't notice the human. He just started digging around in the fridge for the Arnold Palmer he had saved from last week's road trip to Cedar Point. Only after he pulled his face out of the fridge did he notice Jacob's strange position on the wooden floor.

The lupine glanced sideways in thought for a moment, trying and failing to find an easy explanation for the human's behavior.

"Uh...Jake? What are you-?" Wolf tried to ask.

"Shhhh!" he hissed while motioning for the lupine to come over and find out for himself.

Wolf shrugged his bare shoulders and walked calmly towards the stairwell. Suddenly, his ears twitched to point in the downstairs direction, and Jacob knew that he had picked up the sound, too.

Right after hearing it, Wolf's face changed to look almost exactly like Jacob's had; that same confused, yet slightly sure of the gross possibility look. The lupine's steps became softer, his stride shortened, and he overall looked more like he was in a combat operation rather than a peaceful North Dakota house.

Just like he might check a room for enemies, he slowly poked his head around the corner and down the stairwell. It took no time flat for him to reach the same conclusion.

"Oh my God, he's pawing off," Wolf announced softly, eyebrows raised high.

Jacob began to nod in agreement until he fully realized what Wolf had said. Jacob looked again at the lupine, thinking he learned a new expression, but not quite sure.

Wolf picked up on the human's half-confused expression, and although he really didn't feel like saying it, he knew he had to clarify.

"It means he's mastur-"

"I get it," Jacob stopped him, squeezing his eyes shut. He understood what Wolf was trying to say as soon as he heard the first syllable.

Fox kept on going, unbelievably tuned to the outside world. Wolf and Jacob remained frozen in place, seemingly not able to comprehend the events before them. It was well known Internet knowledge that actions like that took place, but it was an entirely different situation altogether to catch someone in the act. Especially someone as supposedly good and heroic as Fox.

Then again, though, if the recent months have taught the Chase kids anything, it's that Fox isn't as perfect as the games make him out to be. From his addiction to Amp, to his over-abundance of criticisms on human technology, and now this new habit, the vulpine was a completely different furry outside of combat.

The paddleball sound continued. Jacob was starting to find his endurance both disgusting and impressive.

What was more surprising, however, was the fact that Fox hadn't noticed either of them yet. For all the bragging he did about his "superior" senses, his awareness was very much lapsing.

"Hey, Wolf, how come he hasn't noticed us yet?" he whispered across the stairwell, looking for some input.

"Pawing off does crazy things to one's senses," the lupine whispered back. He continued with a laugh. "Considering you're a teenager, I figured you'd know that."

Jacob shrugged his shoulders, seeing both the logic and the minor insult. The human was also confused as to why Wolf hadn't gone elsewhere yet. Indeed, this was a strange thing to find in the morning. If anything, pawing off seemed more like an evening activity. But Wolf could certainly find something more interesting on digital cable, right?

Apparently not, because the lupine seemed just as transfixed as Jacob. He sat on his feet, watching Fox's back and taking intermittent sips of his Arizona drink.

_I guess he never thought he'd find Fox fapping, either,_ the human reasoned whilst rolling his eyes.

Another morbid, repulsive, and yet strangely curious thought immediately followed in Jacob's head. He didn't want to think about it, and yet every time he pushed it away, it came right back. Here goes: What was Fox pawing off to?

Jacob wasn't an idiot. He knew there was enough...ahem..._stuff_, both human and furry, to keep anyone going for their entire life. And that's assuming 24-hours-a-day, nonstop action.

But...that question burned itself into the back of his head. No matter how terrible the answer might be, Jacob gained an irresistible desire to find it. The only thing he couldn't figure out, though, was how to get close enough to Fox to find out without completely scaring the shit out of him.

Jacob looked over at Wolf. The lupine was still staring down to the basement, his lone lavender eye completely focused and still. His tail stuck straight out behind him, also unmoving. The coffee maker started to gurgle as it performed its task, adding another layer of sound to the Chase household.

The human's eyes returned to Wolf's face, and the proverbial light bulb lit up above his own head. He recalled back to the day when Fox and Wolf had shown up. Both had been unconscious. Jacob and Josh had dragged them away from the smoldering Arwing, and the furries were both sprawled out across the living room furniture.

Somehow, the idea had gotten into Jacob's head to "borrow" Wolf's cybernetic eye and try it out for himself. Against Josh's objections and his own better judgment, he had succeeded in taking it off the lupine's head and putting it on his own. Now, it didn't last long, because Wolf began to stir, but he had had enough time to realize that it was much more powerful than it looked. Luckily for the human, the lupine never found out.

"Uhh...I know this is a strange question, but...is there any way you could use that cybernetic eye of yours and find out what has Fox so...happy?" Jacob spoke quietly and awkwardly. He could feel the butterflies slam against his stomach as Wolf eyed him back strangely.

"Jeez, how did I know you would ask that?" he replied equally quietly. Jacob responded with a guilty smile.

Wolf sighed. "Alright, let me see what I can do."

He grabbed a hold of the edge of the wooden floor with his paws. He leaned forward, following the slope of the stairs as best he could. The lupine's split-ended tail started to rise into the air, doing its best to give its owner a little extra balance. He wobbled around a little bit, then steadied himself with another swish of his tail.

Relative silence. Fox's paddleball noise was still audible, and so was the coffee maker's gurgling, but other than that, silence. Jacob inched a little closer so that Wolf could talk as quietly as possible when he got his answer.

"Alright...looks like..." the lupine began. He took a moment to come up with proper descriptive words, and then it all flew out. "Looks like some kind of blue...vixen, maybe? Blue, bordering on turquoise eyes, a rather small nose, some ornate jewelry...uh..."

"Thick strands of hair? And a yellow headband?" Jacob asked, thinking he knew the answer.

"...Yes, actually. How'd you know?" Wolf confirmed.

Jacob's body went entirely rigid. His eyes widened with realization and the strain of holding something powerful within his body. If he was a furry, his tail would have stuck straight out, as frozen as a dowel.

Robotically, Jacob rose to his full height and headed for the back door. While he did so, Wolf rose back up from the stairwell, noticing the human's sudden alarm and purpose.

"Hey, where are you going?!" he whispered tersely, but Jacob didn't care to listen. If he didn't make it to his destination, all would be lost.

The human slowly opened the back door. The summer's morning light started to stream into the nearby dining room, reflecting off the wooden surfaces. He made sure to still act quietly, at least for the moment. For once he got to the outdoors, all hell would break loose.

Jacob whirled his body through the doorway. He immediately felt the warm air of the Sun's rays against his skin and clothes, but he didn't care. Ever so slowly and silently, he shut the glass door behind him. He took a nice, deep breath, savoring the nice weather and the sunny skies for one brief moment.

And then, he broke out laughing. Laughing like an absolute madman. It was a laugh so powerful, so psychotic, and so loud that it would put even the best evil villain to shame. He fell over onto the concrete into a fetal position, keeping up the uncontrolled demented laughter.

Dogs two blocks away started barking back in response to Jacob's laughter. It echoed down the streets, through walls, and, of course, into Wolf's and Fox's ears.

As soon as it hit the lupine's ears, he stumbled and dove out of Fox's line of sight. After lying surprised on the floor for a moment or two, he shot an angry glance out the glass door. He saw Jacob rolling around on the ground like an idiot, or maybe like an epilepsy victim.

_Holy shit, what is wrong with him? _Wolf thought as he pulled himself up. The lupine began to storm towards the door, tearing it open viciously once he got there.

"What in the dark reaches of hell is so goddamn funny?!" he shouted at Jacob, literally slamming the door behind him and rattling the house.

"Hold…hold… hold on, dude…" Jacob choked out between laughs. The human worked on steadying himself on his hands and knees. His breathing was still heavy and strained, but he knew it was worth it. He held up one finger to the lupine in an attempt to prove that he really was about to give an explanation.

"Look, that…that vixen you described. That's not just any vixen!" the human began, but the memory started his laughing up once more. Wolf was left rolling his eye and drumming his claws on the small table in front of him.

"Oh…oh God…wow!" Jacob muttered, trying to calm himself back down. "Geez, alright, um…where was I…right. That vixen…Had Fox not have been teleported or whatever to Earth, he would have met that vixen! Not only that, but he would have fallen completely in love with her!"

A fresh round of laughter burst out of Jacob's lungs. He held his hand up again to try and tell Wolf that his explanation wasn't finished.

"Oh, if only Fox knew! If only Fox knew that he could've met that blue vixen in real life! And just the fact that out of all the yiff out there, he stumbles upon Krystal…Oh, the God-forsaken irony!"

To make a long story short, Wolf didn't find it that funny.

"You know what, enjoy your fucked up humor," the lupine replied, shaking his head. He unceremoniously went back inside and back to his room, leaving the human alone in the backyard.

Jacob was too busy laughing to care.

/\\\\\\\\\\\\\

It was one o'clock in the afternoon the next day. Jacob, Fox, and Wolf were congregated in the living room, watching an Adam Sandler movie. Empty bowls of popcorn were strewn about, as were several empty cans of Mountain Dew. As the movie reached its end, Josh walked out of the hallway, bike helmet donned and keys in hand.

"Hey guys, anyone up for a bike ride?" he asked, nonchalantly tossing his keys into the air. There were a few moments of silence, and Josh's smile was about to fade away.

"Ah, hell. Better than sitting around all day watching mediocre comedies," Wolf said as he got out of the recliner. He took a few moments to stretch out his furry body before heading back to his room to grab some stuff.

"Anyone else?" Josh wondered out loud, not really caring about the answer. Wolf volunteering to go was already an amazing achievement in itself.

Fox shook his head, and when Jacob noticed this, so did he.

"I'd rather hang back this time. This Adam Sandler guy is great," he explained with a grin, but nobody listened. Josh was too busy glancing at his twin in amazement.

Wolf sauntered back out into the living room, having changed into some athletic shorts and a Slayer T-shirt. He slid his boots on in one swoop and started opening the front door.

"Well? Come on, Josh," he motioned, holding both the wooden front door and the screen door open with his body.

"Right, sorry," the human responded, shrugging his shoulders. They both left the house. One could hear Josh locking the door behind him, and then the dull hum of the garage door opening.

Fox was about as surprised as Josh was when Jacob declined the bike ride offer. As soon as Josh and Wolf left, he pointed this out.

"Why didn't you go with? I know you aren't the most active person, but you've never turned down a bike ride," the vulpine asked, his ears angled quizzically.

"Well, that's just it," Jacob replied, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. "I wanted to talk to you about something."

"Oh, yeah? Shoot, my friend." He leaned forward on the couch, towards the human to express his interest.

"Look. I don't really care what you do on the computer, ok? You can play your games, watch YouTube, get on Facebook, whatever you want." The human paused here for some emphasis. Meanwhile, he stood up, looking diagonally towards the ceiling.

"I...I don't follow, but—" Fox started, but was cut off.

"But the next time you decide to do something…_less _than holy, could you at least make sure nobody's home, or at the very least, that we're all sound asleep? Is this acceptable?"

Fox stood up himself, eyeing Jacob in an even more befuddled manner.

"Jacob, what are you talking abou—?!" the vulpine started, but towards the end of that sentence, one would think he just looked Medusa herself in the eye. You could just see his entire body stiffen up, every single muscle freeze as he realized what Jacob meant. His shocking green eyes took on a shape reminiscent of a deer in headlights. Not even his tail twitched anymore. He just stood there, stiff as a board.

"Thanks, man. I knew you'd understand," Jacob went on, savoring the vulpine's expression. He patted Fox on the shoulder to end the conversation, which had gotten decidedly one-sided.

"Welp, I'm gonna go play some League of Legends. See ya later, Fox." He walked past the frozen vulpine, through the dining room, down the stairs and out of sight.

Fox just sat there in one spot. He couldn't believe he got caught like that.


End file.
